My latest rant came through unedited in response to a good friend who loves Bernie. Here it is, exactly as it spewed through my fingers and onto the keyboard. I share it because I think it relevant to the larger discussion taking place this primary cycle. So without further adieu:
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The trouble with liberals like you (and me — 🙂 ) is we tend to not realize that everyone doesn’t think like us. Same on the other side. Listen to Tea Partiers. They’re outraged, OUTRAGED, because they can’t REPEAL OBAMACARE NOW!!!
I want to say: “Guess what — the country doesn’t agree with you.” As liberals, best statistics show we’re approximately 27% of the population. Makes for great Occupy protests. If we focus our demands and can accept compromise, might even make for some decent legislation. But when we insist on complete ideological purity, so much so that we can’t even work among ourselves to make a particular request, all that energy creates a bunch of heat and noise and not much else.
I see Bernie supporters as well intentioned and hopelessly naive. If there was openness to going for maximum effect and then falling back to effective compromise, consolidating the biggest gains we can leverage, I’d be all in. But what I typically see is enormous hope and enthusiasm that dissolves into cynicism and despair the moment everything doesn’t go our way. Such an approach leads nowhere. It’s less than worthless because it undermines our cause, leaving us divided against ourselves, weak an ineffectual.
I’m not in love with Hillary Clinton but I know she can be an effective president. In fact, I think she might be almost ideally suited to this particular time and place (assuming the crazy doesn’t break and shangri la rain forth). Did you see her brilliant performance against the Benghazi committee? She made those idiots look like the brazen whores that they are.
Bernie can’t explain how he’ll accomplish any of his lofty ideals. He has no explanation whatsoever. It’s just unicorns and rainbows. I’m all for unicorns and rainbows. I’d totally love that, plus maybe a talking money; I’ve always wanted a talking monkey. But you know, I live on planet Earth, where real politics has a certain look and feel and trajectory. I think Obama’s a great president because he made really important things happen. None of it’s perfect, but all of it moves us in the right direction. He did this in the context of a very challenging time. He did it with black skin and a sizable constituency that hates him for being president while black. And then he has to deal with the part of his own party that hates him for not waiving a magic wand and spreading fairy dust upon all the land, with rainbows and unicorns.
Trust me, the same people who love Bernie now are the ones who will turn on him when he makes his first compromise (and lampoon him as having been insincere when he finds the magic wand doesn’t work).